Collection Leads: Rose Nolan—Word Work

Rose Nolan is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work investigates the for­mal and lin­guis­tic qual­i­ties of words. Nolan uses lan­guage to trans­form archi­tec­tur­al spaces—interior and exterior—to shift the meaning and interpretation of select words and phrases. This ‘Collection Leads’ exhibition contextualises the Gallery’s recent acquisition of Nolan’s Big Words—Trying to get it right or righter, 2018, with the institutional premiere of the major work Big Words (Not Mine)—Transcend the poverty of partial vision (floor version), 2021. Working in her signature palette of red and white, Nolan draws on the words of others—American artist Tammy Rae Carland and art critic and theorist Rosalind Krauss respectively—to explore her interests in labour, seri­al­i­ty and rep­e­ti­tion, the impor­tance of lan­guage, inter­ac­tiv­i­ty, space, and the expe­ri­ence of the viewer.